


You are worthy of the love you are given

by Em_is_here



Series: Life after Happily Ever After [2]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eugene has none, F/M, Low Self Esteem, Nightmares, Rapunzel tells Eugene all the reasons she loves him.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22620766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_is_here/pseuds/Em_is_here
Summary: Eugene has some self doubt issues, Rapunzel clears them up.
Relationships: Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel
Series: Life after Happily Ever After [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627459
Comments: 5
Kudos: 65





	You are worthy of the love you are given

On the long, and quite frankly arduous journey from the final battlefield to the castle, Eugene and Rapunzel spent their nights side by side, held close to keep the nightmares at bay. Ones that had gotten less frequent as time passed, but Rapunzel was still occasionally confronted with the man she loved being stabbed in the back, with no way for her to reach him. And Eugene still spent nights watching Rapunzel be dragged away in chains by her abuser, with no way for him to help. But almost worse were the ones where he had also been taken by Gothel, used as a bargaining chip to keep Rapunzel complacent. Seeing the woman he loved be tortured for all eternity was not particularly high on his to-do list.

It was after Rapunzel woke him from one of the latter with sweet nothings and light kisses as he calmed that down that he asked her “Why do you love me?”

She looked surprised, so he continued “I just don’t understand it. What could I possibly offer you to make you love me? I come attached to nothing, the only people from my past have first tried to make money off of you, then attack you, then befriend you.” He was suddenly thrown back to the Snuggly Duckling, when he first realised the huge mistake he had made, seconds before Blondie had won over the whole tavern. “I have no redeeming qualities, and can do nothing that Cassandra couldn’t also do. So why, Rapunzel? Why?”

Eugene looked frightened and small. It broke her heart. How could he…? Rapunzel was reminded of every time some palace guard had called him a good for nothing criminal during their first year in the castle, and the flash of hurt which had been all too easy to ignore between the self-aggrandizing comments made in contrast to it. 

She sat up slightly, putting her hand to his face and stroking his cheekbone. You could tell it was a genuine question, because he hadn’t made a single comment about his “dashing good looks” the entire time.

“Well to start off, you brought your perfectly sculpted features, which I could hardly ignore...” He cracked a small smile and she was much happier talking to a Eugene who was smiling. “Honey, I love you because of who you are. You are a good man. Sure, you fell off the path a while back, but you had to, to survive. You fought by my side in the quarry after we escaped the Snuggly Duckling, fighting with me and trusting me to be competent, you told me the truth about your identity, even though it took us almost dying, and then you told me your entire life story, just because I cared. You treat me like an adult, capable of making my own decisions, even when everyone else didn’t. You cared about me, not my hair and you gave me my freedom, and when you realised that it was going to be taken away, you fought to get it back for me. You died for me Eugene. How could I not love you?” 

“So I was better than your abuser? Seems like a pretty low bar…”

“When your … abuser… is the only person you’ve ever known, anyone acting with human decency is strange, and scary. But you helped me through the behaviour she conditioned into me, helped me get through the times when, however much she abused me, she was still my mother. And still is, in some ways. You helped my mum understand that it would take some time for me to truly see her as my mother, because, unlike dad, she had to replace someone. You forced my dad to see me as the adult I am, not the child they lost. You are kind to everyone you meet, and can see into the heart of who they are pretty quickly. You wanted to help Kiera and Catalina get through and over their thievery. You helped Varian through his bout of villainy. You are a man full of love and compassion for others, and it shows in everything you do.”

Eugene started to well up, and she was going with him. 

“You support people and are incredibly funny and talented and unconventional. You are a good man, Eugene Fitzherbert. A good man.” A tear or two slipped down her cheek, but she quickly wiped them away. 

“And you are worthy of the love you are given.”

She leaned down and kissed him, soft and loving and conveying everything she didn’t have the words for just yet. And there was the smile she had missed earlier. They pressed their foreheads together. 

“I love you, Blondie.”

“I love you too, Eugene.”

He would never again doubt his worthiness of her love in quite the same way again. Or at least, he would try. And that was enough for her.

**Author's Note:**

> We love torturing our characters


End file.
